Oyo govt approves new minimum wage for workers

The Oyo State Government, on Wednesday, approved a minimum wage of N80,000 for its workers.

In a statement issued by the Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Dotun Oyelade, the technical committee set up by the government recommended and got approval from Governor Seyi Makinde for the implementation of the new salary scale.

Mr Oyelade said the new scale will be implemented as soon as the consequential adjustments process is completed by the committee, which comprises top government and labour officials.

He recalled that only last month, a Federal Government Agency, the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, in its latest employment statistics published for 2024, rated Oyo State as the most worker-friendly state in the whole of Southern Nigeria owing to a significant decline in Oyo State’s unemployment rate.

The commissioner said the achievement followed a series of high-pitched employment of workers into various sectors of the state.

Prompt payment of salary

The commissioner also reiterated that Oyo State pays its workers salaries on the 25th of every month since Governor Makinde came into office in 2019.

He also said Mr Makinde started paying the previous N30,000 minimum wage from inception over four years ago, “including consistent payment of pensions, gratuities and 13th-month salary for both workers and pensioners alike.”

Mr Oyelade explained that since November 2023, Mr Makinde has been paying N25,000 to its workers and N15,000 to its pensioners as a welfare wage award.

He added that the administration started paying the wage award to cushion the effect of the fuel subsidy removal and that it has also been consistent with the payment for over a year to date.

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The commissioner noted that Mr Makinde has paid the backlog of gratuities from 2008 to 2015 for pensioners with an increase in gratuity payment at both the Local Government Staff Pensions Board and those paid by the Ministry of Establishment and Training.

He added that the governor has also put back into payroll, pensioners whose names were removed by the immediate past administration and that all pensioners receive annual Christmas/New Year chicken bonus.